To begin ...

As the twentieth century fades out
the nineteenth begins
.......................................again
it is as if nothing happened
though those who lived it thought
that everything was happening
enough to name a world for & a time
to hold it in your hand
unlimited.......the last delusion
like the perfect mask of death

Saturday, September 24, 2016

Hiromi Ito’s transcreation of The Heart Sutra

Translated from Japanese by
Jeffrey Angles

While looking freely and without effort at the world

While walking with people, searching for the path

In his spiritual quest to discern based on deep wisdom

Avalokiteshvara arrived at a certain thought.

The self is.All sorts
of things are.

I sense that

I recognize that

I think about that

And it is the case that

In all things we discern

We are ourselves.
However, that means

Those things do not
exist

I have understood that clearly

And I have escaped

All suffering and trouble.

Listen to this, Shariputra.

Being is not any different than non-being.

Non-being is not any different than being.

Things we think are really
are not.

If we think of something as non-being that leads to being.

Sensing

Recognizing

Thinking

Discerning

Those things too are just as they are.

Listen to this, Shariputra.

All things that are, are
not.

There is also no living
or dying.

There is also no dirty
or clean.

There is also no increasing
or decreasing.

To put it another away

In non-being

There is no being.

There is also no sensing,
no recognizing

Also no thinking, no
discerning.

There are also no eyes,
no ears, no noses, no tongues

Also no bodies, no hearts.

There are also no colors,
no shapes, no voices, no scents, no flavors,

Also no tangiblethings, no thought-provokingthings.

There is also no world
that can be seen with the eyes.

There is also no world
that can be sensed by the heart.

There are various things that arise from the workings of the
human heart

Ranging from the world that can be seen with the eyes

To the world that can be sensed by the heart

But none of those exist,

Yet neither do those workings go away.

There is also no suffering
of not knowing.

Nor does the suffering
of not knowing go away.

There is also no aging,
dying, and suffering

Nor does aging, dying,
and suffering go away

Because people do not know

There are kinds of various kinds of suffering as grow old and
die

But none of those exist

Yet neither do those sufferings go away.

There is also no suffering in living.

There is also no confusion that creates suffering.

There is also no hope our suffering and our confusion

Will one day go away

Yet neither is there any effort to rid ourselves

Of suffering and confusion.

There is no knowing.

There is no gaining.

In other words, we cannot gain.

Therefore.

Those who search for the way

Follow this wisdom.

And then.

The things our hearts dwell upon go away.

All things we dwell upon go away.

Therefore.

Fear will go away.

All confusion will grow distant,

And the heart free of suffering will grow clear.

Present, past, future

All awakened ones always follow this wisdom

They have lived by it and will live by it.

And then.

It is clearly possible to awaken.

Therefore.

Know this wisdom that will carry you to the far shore.

This is a powerful incantation.

This is a powerful incantation that you will hear
clearly.

This is the ultimate incantation.

This is an incantation that knows no equal.

All suffering will leave you immediately.

This is the truth.This
is not a false claim.

Therefore.

I will tell you this wise incantation.

Here, I will tell you.This is how it goes.

Gyāte

Gyāte

Pāra gate

Pāra samgate

Bodhi svāhā

This has been
the Heart Sutra.

[Translator’s
note: In the 1980s, Hiromi
Ito emerged as one of Japan’s foremost poets, thanks to her powerful and
dramatic writing about motherhood, childrearing, and sexual desire. In recent
years, she has been writing more about aging, suffering, and the impermanency
of life—a theme brought home first by the death of her parents, then her dog,
and then her partner the British-American artist Harold Cohen. Although Buddhism has been an important
element in her work since at least the mid-1980s, recent years have seen her returning
to the Buddhist classics more frequently as she reflects on what they say about
life, death, and the nature of being.

In 2010, she published
The Heart Sutra Explained (Yomitoki
han’nya shingyō), in which she provides essays, personal reflections, and
modern contemporary poetic translations of well-known Buddhist texts. The poem included here comes from that book and is Ito’s modern
Japanese translation of The Heart Sutra (Hannya shingyō), one of the best-known
Buddhist texts. The original consists of a monologue delivered by the enlightened
bodhisattva Avalokitesvara to Shariputra, a disciple who is seeking
wisdom. In this terse and poetic monologue,
Avalokitesvara explains the fundamental Buddhist insight that all things are
empty and illusory, including form, feeling, volition, perception, and
consciousness (what the Buddhist philosophers call the five skandha or
“aggregates”). In translating Ito’s text, instead of returning back to the
original Chinese, I have relied on her contemporary Japanese translation in
order to showcase her individual interpretation. The text concludes with the
mantra, which if read in Sanskrit goes “Gyate
gyate pāragate pārasamgyate bodhi svāhā,” and means something like “Gone, gone, to the other shore, gone, reach,
accomplish enlightenment.”]

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A PROSPECTUS

In this age of internet and blog the possibility opens of a free circulation of works (poems and poetics in the present instance) outside of any commercial or academic nexus. I will therefore be posting work of my own, both new & old, that may otherwise be difficult or impossible to access, and I will also, from time to time, post work by others who have been close to me, in the manner of a freewheeling on-line anthology or magazine. I take this to be in the tradition of autonomous publication by poets, going back to Blake and Whitman and Dickinson, among numerous others.

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